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Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Mid week means its time for a new challenge at Inkspirational. This is month we are being sponsored by Inspired by Stamping who are offering a $20 gift card to our monthly winner. They have some great products so please do visit their store here to see what could be yours!

This week we have this great sketch for you:

Have a look at my card first and if you are thinking 'how did she get that from this sketch??', read on and you will see where the inspiration came from!

When I saw the sketch I thought I knew exactly where I was going but things did take a little turn! I started by heat embossing a flower in vanilla to represent the semi circle. I then intended to add the sentiment across the front but decided a little more dimension was needed and so stamped and die cut two flowers raising them on foam pads. I liked how this looked and was going to leave it there but decided to heat emboss the sentiment and placed it in the corner as it felt like that was the flow of the card.

In the end, this is quite a loose interpretation of the sketch but really was inspired from the original.

I am always so intrigued where inspiration comes from and where it takes us!

I would love to know what this sketch inspires you to create and don't forget to pop over to our blog here and see the fab projects our DT have made this week.

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Today I am here with my card to hopefully encourage you to enter our challenge this week at Inkspirational.
This week we are asking you to case this card by one of my favourite crafters Nancy,

I loved the angular look of this card with the pretty dress frame in the corner. Plus the strong maroon colour combined with the bright white card stock. I took these elements as my inspiration and came up with this:

All the stamps are from PTI and I have used the linen impression plate to add a bit of texture and soften the bold and angular feel to my card. I do love how this turned out and hope you do too!

Thursday, 21 March 2013

Happy Friday Eve and time for our weekly challenge at CAS-Colour and Sketches. And this week we have this colour combo for you.

You can make cards using the closest you can to these colours.

Here is what I came up with:

I had trouble with these colours myself as I don't have any of these inks except the red. And being a lover of stamps rather than coloured and patterned card, I had to think for a while. I eventually got out some white core DCWV card I have had for ages and sat with the SU colour guide until I found a card that matched 'river rock'. I was so pleased when I found it! Then I went through the Mum's old button tin and found the perfect match for the suede colour. So I managed to get this combo and only used my red ink. Amazing what we can find in our stash!!

I had all these elements together then saw this card from Aimes and inspiration struck me-so thank you Aimes.

Our DT have some great cards using this combo so visit our blog here and take a look.

Sunday, 17 March 2013

I am off for a stay in hospital and am not sure when I will be back crafting. I am hoping I will be back getting inky around Easter.

I have a few scheduled DT posts coming out in the next 2 weeks but that is all I have planned. Unfortunately I am not allowed the access to the Internet in hospital so will not be able to comment on your cards.......I know they will all be gorgeous and what a jot it will be to come home to catch up!

Friday, 15 March 2013

I am popping in with my card for the Muse Club 8th challenge. So far I have managed to take part each week. I have really been enjoying this challenge as the idea is to inspire each other, visit and comment on other entries. I have had such fun visiting other blogs and have come across some great crafters that I probably would never have seen before this challenge came along. Jackie created this challenge and if it is the first time you are visiting my blog this week you will notice I have a new look! Jackie designed my new blog header and template this week-she is offering a new graphic design service which I can highly recommend-check out the details here.

And back to my card! This week we had a fab inspiration card from Therese Calvird. I loved the big purple flower as the focal point and the her use of the twine. And this is what I came up with, heat embossing vanilla on kraft, using a purple base, button and twine. I decided to give heat embossing another go as I was blown away by Suzy's card here at Make My Monday.

Ruth, my blogging friend and fellow DT member at Inkspirational, always decorates the inside of her cards and envelopes and today as a nod to Ruth I have done the same.

And the envelope

As I have had another go at heat embossing I am going to enter a second card into the 'heat embossing' challenge at Make My Monday
I am also entering the CAS challenge at 4 Crafty Chicks

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Its Friday Eve and that means its time for our next challenge at CAS-Colour and Sketches. This week we want to see what cards you are inspired to make using this sketch:

It now feels like spring may be around the corner as we have sunshine now, cold but sun! So I decided to celebrate this with some spring flowers.

I have really made a CAS version of this sketch and also flipped it.

The top flower has been stamped and die cut and popped up on a foam pad for dimension.

Both flowers are from the Stampin' Up 'secret garden' set. I decided to colour both of the stamps using promarkers.

I felt the background card needed some subtle stamping so used a PTI flower set, first stamping off the ink to give this faded, 'barely' there look. Some brown twine to finish my card off. I haven't added a sentiment as I felt the front didn't need it-an extra bonus as I am not sure who this going to be for yet!

Our DT have a great variety of cards for you, take a look here and then get out your crafting goodies and get stamping!

I was inspired by the flowers and the colours in this photo. And that includes the colour of the bunny-instead of thinking Easter and bunnies, I thought, Kraft!!

I would love some help from you here please........the colour of this ink is 'elderberry' from memento and whatever colour card I stamp it on, it just looks black and not the purple on the front of the pad! Can anyone advice me on a ink pad that the purple is like the purple of the flowers in this photo?

Have you noticed my new look?? I really am a London girl now! This is all thanks to Jackie Rockwell who I am sure many of you know from her blogs CAS(E) the sketch and Muse Club. Well now she is offering a custom graphic design service for our blogs. When I read about her new service here I decided to contact her and find out more information. I told Jackie my vision for my blog header and she skillfully and extremely quickly translated this into the header you now see! I love it, she really captured the old style London feel I wanted with the font mixed with the contemporary skyline......makes me love London more! And naturally it had to be purple!! I can really recommend you take a look at Jackie's graphic design blog here, and why not get a new look.....no scalpels or injections needed and all at amazing prices!

Monday, 11 March 2013

......on heat embossing! I know many of you discovered this years ago but it is still new to me and I am really having a lot of fun with it! And come to think of it, I am also getting (perhaps a little too much) hooked on my weekly Christmas card challenge!

I took about 20 photos of this card as the gold shimmer paper just reflected in every one. Plus today it has been snowing and dull, not the perfect day for taking photos! So, I apologise for the quality of this photo and IRL it really does look better-in fact I love the way it looks!!

I have used heat embossing on the sentiment and the little present. And just added a few little pearls. A very CAS card but I think sweet!

Saturday, 9 March 2013

At Inkspitational this week we have a colour challenge and I am here with an end of week encouragement project for you.We are asking you to go all green, any shades of green you want!

And as it is a new month we have a new monthly sponsor, Inspired by stamping. They are offering our monthly winner a $20 gift card to spend in their store-take a look here and see all the fabulous goodies that could be yours!

This week I decided to step outside my comfort zone and not make a card for you but a little heart basket. A while a go I saw a tutorial for this by Dana Seymour on the DeNami Design blog. I loved the heart basket and imagined one day I would give it a go. I saved the tutorial and this challenge, for some reason, reminded of this basket, so I decided to give it a go. I think it must be because Mother's Day and Easter are about to hit us and I like to make my Mum a small gift full of chocolates! And after following Dana's step by step guide I came up with this:

I stamped 2 of the heart dies with a mix of SU and Paper smooches stamps and the handle die cuts are form SU, with little green buttons from my stash. Bakers twine us used to hold it all together. And Mum will love all those chocolates!

So, a little different for me this week but I did have fun making this and did surprise myself that I managed to do it and enjoy it!!

Thursday, 7 March 2013

I thought this combo was perfect for a Mother's Day card. As both my Mum and MIL love flowers I decided to use my new SU 'secret garden' stamps and framelits. I just layered these using foam pads to give dimension and then added a button that actually came from my Mum's old button tin!
I added this sweet little sentiment from PTI and was going to leave the card like this but it just didn't look quite right to me. I decided it needed a ribbon but it was too late as the flowers were stuck down! After a bit of messing around I went for a single stamped chevron and love how it turned out!!

See what you think?

I do like how a little curved corner just adds that little extra to a CAS card.

Our DT have some great cards to inspire you so take a pop over to our blog here and get stamping!

I will also enter this into the 'anything goes' challenge at ABC challenges

I have been thinking about this for a while as I wanted to use my new Stampin' Up 'Come to Bethlehem' stamp set. I have made a very CAS version of this sketch using twine to represent the 4 corner strips. I didn't seem to be able to get them as close as I wanted but hopefully you get the idea. The sentiment is from my new set and the star is part of the nativity stamp. I used this PTI impression plate for the first time and really like the texture it gives. I didn't add anymore to the card as I felt it would be too much.

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

I loved her CAS card here. The Kraft, the white inked flowers stamped off the page and the simple but striking sentiment. I knew immediately I saw the card what I wanted to do. I stayed pretty much to the layout of Laurie's card, with my own 'case' of this.
You will see I have used my, very much loved, PTI medallion stamp. Instead of inking it in white, I had my second try at heat embossing this time trying out a vanilla powder. A little black ribbon loop was all I needed to finish off my Muse card this week. I do love how this came out!

Sunday, 3 March 2013

The card I have to share with you today is quite appropriate because today in London with have blue skies and sun!

I have been wanting to use this Verve stamp for a while now so when I saw Therese's card here on CAS(E) the sketch inspiration struck me and I knew exactly how I wanted to use it-so thank you Therese!
I was also inspired by the colour combo at Colour Q and this gave me the opportunity to bring a bit more colour to my card by adding this little button.

This paper is kinda cloudy blue but I have added distress 'broken china' ink to the top half of the card to give the effect of a brighter blue above!
The cloud dies are both embossed.
Hope you have a chilled Sunday and get a little crafting sneaked in!

Friday, 1 March 2013

So far I am keeping up with making a Christmas card a week.....how long will it last???

Plus, I have been trying to learn a new technique each month and today I am sharing with you my first ever card with heat embossing!! The sentiment has been heat embossed with silver-not too bad for my first card.

I tried die cutting my large snowflake out of white felt but the felt was too thick. My next thought was to die cut a bauble out of my thin red felt but then I decided to have a rummage through my Christmas stash box and have some fun!

So this card is made up of embellishments taken from old cards plus bits and pieces I have never used before. The pink netting actually has little snowflakes on it, although it is hard to see-this netting has been in my stash for ages and is being used here for the first time.
The snowmen's hats and the mistletoe is all made out of felt.

This is a card that is quite different for me but was such fun to make I wanted to share it with you.

I will have to work out how to take photos with the silver embossing but at least you can see I really have learnt a new technique and am hoping to try this more.